Transferring disabled persons or dependent elderly persons is a complicated task even for several people, due to the effort required to move them, which can lead to serious health problems for caregivers, ranging from muscular pains to lumbago or hernias which lead to sick leave as a result of this activity.
There are currently displacement lifts which are robust and can only be used within the person's dwelling. They also have the drawback of requiring a great deal of space to transfer the person, due to which their use may be restricted to hospital centres, nursing homes, etc.
In addition to wheelchairs, a chair is known to exist that serves to manually transfer the disabled person from the wheelchair to the bed, which has two lift cylinders for situating the person at the desired height, a backrest detachable from the chair structure, which is removed to execute the movement, and a sliding seat for situating the person as close as possible to the centre of the bed.
Furthermore, patent of invention ES2369454B1 relates to a chair lift for handling disabled persons, which consists of a chair structure with a seat having an opening closed by a practicable lid for enabling the disabled user to satisfy his or her physiological needs in a sitting position, wherein the seat and the backrest are detachable with respect to the chair structure in order to situate the disabled person, and wherein the chair comprises a hydraulic cylinder for lifting the chair structure and, therefore, the disabled person in that chair, for the subsequent transfer thereof.
The two aforementioned chairs, while fulfilling their function, have several limitations, including the fact that the caregiver must execute a movement whereby he or she turns and pushes the dependent person, which can affect their health, and the fact that their use is limited to interiors, since they do not have a structure optimized for its use outdoors or on irregular ground.
Therefore, the known solutions of prior arts do not offer fully satisfactory solutions to the current problem. The electric wheelchair of the present invention contributes to solve the current problem, as it offers a new way of transferring disabled persons, thereby achieving enhancements with respect to the current state of the art and contributing quality of life to caregivers and users.